Archive for the ‘movies’ Category

A blockbuster wartime bio-pic faces the axe – after it was revealed the New Yorker who wrote it made the whole story up! Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss and Irish starlet Sarah Bolger were set to make “The Fence” – based on an autobiography by Herman Rosenblat.

In the movie, Dublin-born beauty Bolger plays Roma, a young girl who forms a bond with teenage Nazi concentration camp victim Rosenblat after she keeps him alive by tossing him breadcrumbs and apples over the barbed wire fence.

However, Rosenblat, who went on to marry Roma following a chance meeting years later in New York, has now shockingly confessed he concocted the information in his book, “Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love that Survived.”

Retired New York telly repairman Herman, whose bogus story has now been scrapped by publishers, apologised this week, saying: “I wanted to bring happiness to people, to remind them not to hate, but to love and tolerate all people. I brought good feelings to a lot of people and I brought hope to many. My motivation was to make good in this world. In my dreams, Roma will always throw me an apple, but I now know it is only a dream.”

Even chat show queen Oprah Winfrey was taken in by the hoax. Oprah who hosted Rosenblat and his wife, Roma Radzicki Rosenblat, on her show twice, called their romance “the single greatest love story” she had encountered in her 22 years on the show.

CRACKPOT actress Rose McGowan could ensure a low budget movie makes millions – thanks to her bizarre IRA rant. Rose, who played a sexy witch in the telly show Charmed, left fans spellbound at the premiere of Fifty Dead Men Walking,when she said: “Had I grown up in Belfast I would have 100 per cent joined the IRA.”

However, though her idiotic remarks were slammed by the producers of the movie about an IRA infiltrator, the negative publicity has persuaded distributors all over the world to buy the rights to screen it. In her notorious rant, McGowan, 35, whose dad is Irish, added: “My heart just broke for the cause. Violence is not to be played out daily and provide an answer to problems – but I do understand it.”

Made on a shoestring budget, Fifty Dead Men Walking, which would probably only have got a limited release without Rose’s shocking intervention, is based on Martin McGartland’s 1997 memoir about a young Catholic in Belfast recruited by the British. Says a movie insider: “The people at Handmade Films who produced this were quick to condemn Rose’s comments. But secretly they are probably thrilled because they paid peanuts to make it and the bad publicity is going to turn this into a monster hit. Rose is a bit of a maverick who doesn’t play by Hollywood rules – but despite her despicable views, fans love her because she’s a bad girl. That’s why she is always being cast in dark roles as a witch or a killer.”

Handmade Films executive Guy Collins made a series of deals to sell the film – in which Rose plays a Prove femme fatale – worldwide shortly after the recent Toronto Film Festival.

You’d have to be tough or insane to try to beat up acting giant Liam Neeson – but that doesn’t stop his wife Natasha Richardson from thinking it happens all the time. Strapping Schindler’s List star Neeson, who measures 6ft 4in, keeps coming home with bruises and has a hard job persuading Natasha he’s just injured himself on the movie set.

New York-based Liam, 56, worried Richardson more than ever during the shooting of his new movie Taken, in which his character pursues a group of kidnappers who have snatched his daughter. The Oscar-nominated actor was required to undergo intense fighting training which left him covered from head to foot in bruises.

“I keep pretty fit, but I had to crank up the level and intensity of my training,” explains Liam, who lives in the Big Apple with Natasha and his kids. “I had to get together with a couple of guys in Paris and learn these different fight techniques known as ‘parkour’ which we had to keep doing it for weeks because there was so many complex fighting sequences. Every time I saw my wife she thought I’d been beaten up literally, and of course I had.”

After cashing in on the Montauk Monster hysteria for ten days, the makers of a low budget movie are now singing a rather different tune. The crew of the new Lea Thompson film Splinterheads were shooting in Montauk when the monster sightings first occurred and have been linking to a Gotham News report on their website ever since and even brazenly displaying a picture of the famed beastie.

Now though, the film’s writer-director Brant Sersen has decided to own up to the fact his movie has nothing to do with the monster at all. Not only that but he is trying to pin all the blame on a 16-year-old kid who allegedly set up his own fake Splinterheads website to make a bit of money for himself.

Explains Sersen on his website Sersen Park: “It’s amazing what a quick thinking 16 year old entrepreneur can do. Here’s what happened – Newsday does an article about our film (which is shooting near Montauk). Montauk Monster story breaks, kid steals some of our graphics, sets up a fake official Splinterheads website, makes up some names and voila – a national story.

“I’d like to go on record and say our movie “Splinterheads” has had nothing to do with this Montauk Monster thing. We’re shooting a comedy out here in Patchogue – not a horror film. My producer Darren does not have a sister Rachel, but a Rachael Taylor is starring in the film. Along side Thomas Middleditch, Christopher McDonald, Lea Thompson, Dean Winters, Frankie Faison, Jason Rogel and Pamela Shaw. Check http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1254696/ if you don’t believe me.”

It’s not that we don’t believe you, Mr. Splinterhead. It’s just that we don’t believe you have the gall to blame a kid for being a kid, when you have milked this story for all it is worth. Rather hypocritical. Pictures of the monster have been on your site for 10 days now, generating thousands of hits and interest in a movie which would otherwise be ignored. You finally admit Goldberg doesn’t have a sister called Rachel and yet on your August 7 website entry, you posted: “Thank’s Darren’s sister.” Funny but misleading.

Instead of blathering on about 16-year-old ‘entrepreneurs,’ try to look on the bright side. No one will watch your flick when it comes out next year but lots of people have read your website because of the monster!

The real mystery is why a beautiful and talented actress like Lea Thompson would want to be associated with the film!

This is how Splinterheads tried to cash in on the monster on their website on August 7.

Long before Bruce Wayne started dressing up in ladies’ tights and long before anyone thought of “The Big Apple,” people were referring to New York as “Gotham.”

Now there are moves afoot to have Gotham City made the official nickname for New York. Queens Councilman Hiram Monserrate, counts Gotham’s Dark Knight as one of his childhood heroes and thinks we should cash in on the box office success of the new Batman movie by adopting the moniker now.

Monserrate explains: “I see this as a marketing tool, ‘Come visit the real Gotham City,’ taking advantage of this movie which will be one of those gate-breaking, record-selling movies. When we talk about Gotham we talk about tremendous, tremendous nightlife, restaurants, lounges, clubs and cafes, frappuccinos and everything else that we have in this City, the Village, Queens.”

“We also talk about the rich architecture that our City enjoys. A lot of Gothic architecture exists in New York City. So Gotham’s also obviously related to Gothic and Gothic architecture which is a form of art, so it’s very important for our art community to strengthen its reconnection to being a Gotham City.”

Our friends at the New York Daily News have very kindly produced a Top Ten list of “Best big screen underwear moments.” While we think they’ve missed out a few, a quick visit to Mr Skin will sort that out.

We’ve purposely left out Scientology kook Tom Cruise in Risky Business, but here are a few of the better ones:

THIS is actress Meg Ryan as her fans hope never to see her – 140lb heavier and slobbing in the street, feeding on junk food. Don’t worry though – it’s just a scene from her new movie, “My Mom’s Hot Boyfriend.” Meg, 46, is best known for her other famous eating scene in When Harry Met Sally in which she faked a screaming orgasm while munching on a sandwich at Katz Deli. This time though, we won’t have “what she’s having.”

While Meg hasn’t quite hit skid row yet in real life, she has suffered a string of flop films – and this one is apparently also going straight to DVD. As gossip site Defamer cruelly says, “To say that Meg’s career is in a free-fall would be to imply that her career hasn’t already hit rock bottom.

“She becomes the latest in a long string of actresses to strap herself into a fat suit, only to magically “slim down” to win the heart of a handsome man — a trick which stopped being funny the second time that the Friends gang went to that well.”

Welcome!

Welcome to the web's newest source for all things Gotham. We're the curio-blog Batman would read ...if he could. Enjoy our quirky news feed, as it casts its weary eye over America, and help us in our bid to make Gotham City the official nickname for New York.